


Preoccupation

by Bleeb90



Series: Guilt [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Attempted Seduction, Genderfluid Character, Incest, Multi, Obsession
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 07:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21490729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bleeb90/pseuds/Bleeb90
Summary: Somehow it all seemed to come down to Kushina-nee-san. Since her death, something fundamental had changed in Minato-sensei.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Namikaze Minato, Hatake Kakashi & Uzumaki Naruto, Namikaze Minato/Uzumaki Naruto
Series: Guilt [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/957630
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Preoccupation

**Author's Note:**

> The canon narrative of this universe might be that glory awaits child soldiers. Let's make ninja culture even more insidious, shall we?

Kushina-nee-san’s death, Kakashi mused, had irrevocably changed Minato-sensei. Regrettably, it hadn't changed him for the better.

  
  


Sensei, who would often have a bounce in his step, had lost that bounce and gained a slump in his shoulders. As if, without Kushina-nee-san there, he had no-one to share the weight of the world with; his many burdens dragging him down.

  
  


Even more damning evidence would be that sensei had lost his smile. Kakashi wasn't stupid and he certainly didn't need anyone to explain it to him in small words, but some part of him held on to the falsehood that his failing to protect Kushina-nee-san was the reason that sensei didn't ruffle his hair anymore.

  
  


It was silly to hold on to such gestures, but when it came down to it, Kakashi was nothing more than a severely emotionally stunted teenager that would exasperate his therapists because somewhere along the way the complete lack of affection of anyone in Kakashi's bleak life had him embrace the public persona of “Cold-blooded Friend Killer Kakashi” with passion.

  
  


Nevertheless, at the end of the day, Kakashi would lay in bed wondering how sensei was holding up, and whether or not he’d have to bribe or blackmail sensei's secretary into feeding sensei some meals.

  
  


Whether the knowledge that little Naruto-chan needed sensei would be enough.

  
  


Kakashi had seen his own father slowly wither away before the man finally killed himself. He would loathe to see his father figure do the very same thing.

  
  


So Kakashi did what he would always regret not doing enough with his actual father: nag Minato-sensei until he had a standing invitation at the dinner table and be there at least twice a week. He made sure not to be an extra burden and cook for sensei and do the dishes. Talk with sensei about the little stuff, play with Naruto-chan to give sensei a break, and he even stepped completely out of his comfort zone to give his naturally affectionate widower of a sensei - who had to be a strong leader all day long - a hug.

  
  


Minato-sensei might have been completely surprised and must have known what a big deal it was for Kakashi, because he hadn't even tried to tease him about it, but rather leaned in. Savoured it. Not a single comment but silent gratitude after almost a decade of complaining about how Kakashi was as inviting to physical affection as a particularly prickly cactus could be.

  
  


That alone was enough for Kakashi to have known he did the right thing. Little Naruto-chan might have been cute as a button, but platonic affection from a non family member must have been to sensei like what water must be like to an injured nin lost in the sweltering sand dunes of Suna.

  
  


Kakashi resolved that day to make his hugs a permanent fixture in his sensei's life, and only in the privacy of his own mind he relished how those hugs became a little less scarier with each time he leaned in to give said hugs. Becoming the sole pillar of support for his sensei and Hokage was - despite his absolute willingness to b come just that - not as easy as it sounded in theory. Sensei wouldn’t speak about his pain at all. Which, Kakashi knew, was a legitimate way of coping. If a bad one.

  
  


Luckily, Kakashi had found an unexpected but much appreciated comrade in Uchiha Mikoto-sama who - as Kushina-nee-san's best friend, had told Minato-sensei in a demure but nevertheless headstrong fashion that Kushina-nee-san had named Mikoto-sama an honorary aunt, and that was what she'd be; “whether Hokage-sama appreciated her effort or not.”

  
  


From the very start Mikoto-sama started to steal Naruto-chan away on a regular basis from a pathetically grateful Minato-sensei for playdates with Sasuke-chan, and genuinely helped the widower figure juggling single fatherhood and a demanding job out. The jounin answer? Heavy abuse of shadow clones. Kakashi had no idea how anyone did it that didn’t have the necessary chakra available. When he said as much, both sensei and Mikoto-sama had to concur.

  
  


But even when Minato-sensei wasn't alone and had help - even when Kakashi stuck as close as humanly possible - he couldn't help but wonder whether it'd be enough. Especially because Minato-sensei started pouring his grief in an relentless manhunt on whoever it was that released the Kyuubi.

  
  


It was precisely that kind of desperate urgency in Minato-sensei that only Kakashi seemed to be looking to spot underneath, that led him to accepting Naruto-chan for the night - no questions asked - when he was only fourteen years old and had no business taking a child in; not knowing if their hurting parent would still be alive to come and claim their son the following morning. Regardless, Kakashi would make do if it came to that.

  
  


The following morning, Kakashi smelled Minato-sensei’s blood on his sensei. Open wounds then. But no alarm had been raised whatsoever. And considering he had had Naruto-chan for the night, one of his ANBU colleagues would have definitely informed him if that were the case.

  
  


Not to mention, he had been afraid Minato-sensei would hurt himself in the most permanent matter. Why hadn’t he thought of auto-mutilation? That was a venue Kakashi hadn't even considered. All in all, it was not a worst case scenario in Kakashi's mind.

  
  


In any case, Kakashi was infinitely grateful that Minato-sensei refrained to comment on Kakashi's urge to blink away tears of simply seeing his sensei alive. What Minato-sensei did say - in a rather aplomb manner at that - was that henceforth this would become a bi-weekly arrangement. That Kakashi would truly become Naruto-chan's brother.

  
  


Something had changed in sensei's eyes, and for the first time since Kushina-nee-san’s death Minato-sensei - not the Fourth Hokage, but the human being carrying that heavy mantle of duty - spoke of the future. Kakashi savoured it. If this was all it took, he'd keep his silence.

  
  


There was a future, hence there was hope. And that made Kakashi incredibly happy because lately he had started to contemplate the proverb of digging two graves when seeking revenge, and had been agonizing in how quickly Naruto-chan would become an orphan despite Kushina-nee-san's best intentions in preventing that scenario.

  
  


Somehow it all seemed to come down to Kushina-nee-san. Since her death, something fundamental had changed in Minato-sensei. It was clear that sensei would not rest before the perpetrator was caught, and slowly the rest of Konoha seemed to catch on. People started to realise how the Red Hot Blooded Habanero had been the Yondaime's anchor, and that with her his compassion had died as well.

  
  


While Minato-sensei's unrelenting pursuit of the man that released the Kyuubi - the man who killed Kushina-nee-san - bordered the manic, Kakashi had never been gladder he could take part because he was a specialized tracker and one of sensei's trusted ANBU.

  
  


Their pursuit led them to an organisation of missing nin, and finding Obito there showed Kakashi that he still had something left to break after all, while sensei seemed to have been broken beyond repair already. While Kakashi desperately tried to keep his shit together, sensei dealt with Obito personally before joining his subordinates in systematically killing the rest of the missing nin they found. It was only the countless ANBU infiltration and extermination drills that allowed Kakashi to fall within the rhythm of what he knew and do what he was supposed to do in the first place.

  
  


It was telling how his monikers such as “Cold-blooded Friend Killer Kakashi” were promptly taken away from Kakashi and bestowed upon Minato-sensei. After all, Uchiha Obito was Yondaime-sama’s student, wasn't he? And killing your own students was beyond pale, even when they were missing nin. There was a reason people forgave Sandaime-sama, the so-called “God of Shinobi”, for letting Orochimaru get away.

  
  


For some reason people seemed to pity Kakashi for having such a fearsome and unforgiving mentor. It was incomprehensible to him, but somehow nobody would accept that Minato-sensei hadn't always been that way. Kakashi remembered a man that went above and beyond for his six year old grieving student who had come home just to find his father's cooling corpse. Kakashi remembered lots of unasked for but nevertheless grounding physical contact and an endless supply of soothing smiles. Kakashi remembered comfort from simply being near sensei because sensei used to be the type of person who exuded that aura of happiness and safety naturally. And that had changed so much. These days all Minato-sensei smelled like was gloom, doom, self loathing, and guilt. Maybe sensei was such a wreck because he felt like be had failed Kushina-nee-san as well. It would certainly explain much.

  
  


Whenever Kakashi would try to correct those horrid people set on thinking the worst of his dear sensei, and try to tell them about the man he grew up with - the man chosen to be the Yondaime Hokage - they’d tut at him as if they saw a kid that was barely the age of the average peace-time chuunin; rather than a veteran ninja that grew up at the frontlines of the Third Shinobi World War, a ninja with ten years of experience under his belt, of which the last two and a half were as a jounin and ANBU. Kakashi bet that if he would take of his mask today, they’d still try to pinch his cheek while cooing at him, just like they all did when he started the academy.

  
  


It rankled him.

  
  


“After all,” they’d gossip about his beloved sensei, “don't the people to become Kage have to have some special form of hardness and cunning?” It was a sentiment he kept hearing whispers of everywhere. Kakashi simply wanted to scream about the unfairness of it all.

  
  


That Minato-sensei's ruthless manhunt had allowed Konoha to kill both Orochimaru and Uchiha Madara in battle somehow only cemented sensei's position. Kakashi would say it was quite an accomplishment to set out on a specific mission, stay exactly within it’s parameters, and yet kill three of Konoha’s most dangerous missing nin when two of them were mistakenly thought to be dead.

  
  


Normally ninja don’t get that lucky when their mission had unknowns that were either ridiculously strong or desperate than expected. On a bad day those were the parameters of an epic SNAFU. Yet they returned with as many ninja that had set out on the mission, carrying the heads of 2 more missing nin than Konoha had accounted for. In Kakashi’s book, that was prowess.

  
  


Evidently the public thought differently. ‘The fearsome Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, the Yellow Flash, who sacrificed his own wife to seal the Kyuubi into his own son. A man with no scruples even about killing his own students.’ Or so they would say. Kakashi hated all those malicious gossips with great zeal.

  
  


What scared Kakashi the most was that he saw how little the public’s opinion did to Minato-sensei. Somehow it was scarier than his late father’s complete breakdown at the public’s judgement, because Minato-sensei’s sense of self worth seemed to border on non-existent already. Which was baffling because he used to have it in spades. It seemed as if the Kyuubi managed to wreak more havoc upon sensei’s mind that night, than it did upon the rest of Konoha. Which was significant because by no means they were done rebuilding anytime soon.

  
  


What did sensei still have left to get out of bed for? His duty to Konoha? To Naruto-chan? Kakashi knew that for all that sensei cared about his last student, he wasn’t even a part of the equation anymore. The sad part was, that when Kushina-nee-san was alive, he was pretty sure he still used to be one of Minato-sensei's precious persons and worth getting out of bed for. But then again, sensei seemed to be only going through all the motions these days.

  
  


Visiting his therapist to talk about what’s bothering him would be utterly pointless. After all, Kakashi could already imagine the entire conversation happening in the first place. Already he could imagine his therapist noting he didn't comment on the new family picture on their desk (they changed after holidays, birthdays and anniversaries; on the dot). Then his therapist would ask him whether he had practised small talk again so he’d be more approachable to both civilians and comrades. Kakashi would feel exasperated because he really didn’t feel like bothering to practice the art of useless and meaningless conversation.

  
  


Afterward, they’d slowly delve into the the cesspit that is called a ninja’s job satisfaction and coping with the less glamorous aspects of chosen career. He could even imagine the faux sympathetic smiles on his therapists face and the way they keep their face the pinnacle of professionalism, and yet reeks of revulsion and sometimes even fear whenever Kakashi delved into how he felt about the carnage he dealt as an ANBU.

  
  


And then, when the obligatory nonsense was dealt with Kakashi would be free to talk about what was really bothering him. About how he was increasingly preoccupied with worry about Minato-sensei. How Minato-sensei smelled stronger of depression and self loathing each day. How Minato-sensei auto-mutilates whenever he dumps Naruto on Kakashi under the guise of familial bonding. How these questions would physically keep Kakashi up at night.

  
  


No doubt his therapist would tell him it was an unhealthy obsession. That Kakashi wasn’t responsible for the lives and choices of others; not even if those others were people he cared for very much. That they were responsible for themselves and that Kakashi couldn’t do anymore than he was already doing and that he had his own mental health to look after.

  
  


Of course, with Kakashi’s luck, his therapist would probably even get all paternalistic and ask him how he was coping with being an instrument of Rin’s suicide these days, all while underscoring that both Rin and Sensei were individuals who made their own choices.

  
  


Yes, visiting his therapist truly felt incredibly pointless. He had read the damn textbooks. Kakashi knew all about recognising and redirecting negative thought patterns and vicious cycles. But knowing where your emotional distress stems from doesn't mean you have already willed it away. Kakashi simply couldn't, try as he might.

  
  


In a worse case scenario, Kakashi's concerns would be viewed as treasonous. In a military dictatorship there were protocols in place for dealing with anything that might undermine their Hokage’s prowess. They’d probably just hear a young disturbed ANBU making allegations about their Hokage’s mental health. In that scenario they’d have him in the deepest pits of T&I, or maybe even the infamous ROOT, in order to set him straight and only let him return to duty when he was properly brainwashed. He’d be useless to Minato-sensei if that happened.

  
  


So Kakashi did what he did best and kept his mouth closed like a proper shinobi, and fixated on supporting Minato-sensei where he could. He dearly hoped it’d be enough.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Barely a month after returning to Konoha with the body scrolls of Orochimaru, Madara, and Obito, Uchiha Mikoto-sama offered the severed heads of her husband and several clan elders that had presumably been conspiring a coup, and seeing how both Minato-sensei and the T&I Yamanakas had raised their eyebrows about how these elders had their heads clean chopped off and had their eyeballs neatly removed (while conveniently leaving the brains in tact for the Yamanakas to ransack) it was widely considered a smart move on Mikoto-sama’s part when it came to grand gestures of reconciliation to irate Hokages. She even managed to cement her position further as the Hokage's most trusted clan head by graciously allowing T&I to snatch another dozen of the Uchiha to never be seen again.

  
  


The Uchiha clan was once more seen as ruthless but unwaveringly true to Konoha, and Inuzuka Tsume-sama suddenly had a good friend in another strong female clan head on that happily kicked ass while taking names. Coincidentally that was the push for Tsume-sama’s husband to high tail it out of the village. Not too long after the deserter was dragged back into Konoha and neatly delivered at T&I to never be seen again with the compliments of the best trackers the Inuzuka who only had to offer a derisive comment about how “it had been a long time coming with the spineless twerp”.

  
  


Minato-sensei was slowly turned into this untouchable deity, and where he was once revered he had become widely feared. Even within Konoha. Kakashi and Naruto-chan seemed to be the only ones that didn't fear him yet. Even Jiraya-sama, who had been sensei's sensei seemed to appreciate some distance, compared to before. After all, Minato-sensei had a direct hand in killing two of Jiraya-sama's hand picked students. Then again, Jiraya-sama was Naruto-chan’s godfather and therefore no excuse for absence was good enough. Not to mention that Jiraya-sama did a tremendously bad job in turning his students into loyal Konoha shinobi; which was a rather significant tactical failing in Kakashi's humble opinion.

  
  


Kakashi resented them all for it, and resolved to keep showing sensei that he cared. He made himself useful by going deep undercover into ROOT to find out what the correspondence they found between Orochimaru and the other missing nin with Shimura Danzo had been all about. No matter how much easier it would have been, it was simply bad politics to snatch an esteemed member of the council and drag them off to interrogation. Even when you were the dictator of a military leadership.

  
  


It was easier than it should have been because Danzo tried to drag Kakashi into ROOT on his own accord but then had the gall to try and convince Kakashi to kill his cherished sensei; Kakashi snapped. His rare show of impulse led to a bloodbath, and the only reason Kakashi managed to walk out dragging Shimura Danzo's mangled corpse with him was because twenty-something somewhat cognizant blank slates otherwise known as Root ninja had instinctively known that turning the tide of the fight in Kakashi’s favour would give them an opportunity to reclaim their identity and life back as their own.

  
  


When T&I had the story of Kakashi and the ROOT ninjas straight, Minato sensei had ANBU reorganised, with enough units to assimilate the ROOT ninjas properly. And just like that did Kakashi not only get his reputation as a heartless stone cold killer back, but he found himself to be an ANBU captain at the age of fourteen. The nameless former ROOT ninja who was designated to him for a buddy system assimilation into Konoha was just the cherry on top. Needless to say, he was not impressed.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When Kakashi is sixteen years old little Itachi-kun graduated. Unfortunately, at Mikoto-sama's behest he was immediately made into Kakashi's problem.

  
  


"Konoha has a tradition of having a genius teach a genius, Kakashi. Not to mention, I was even younger than you are now when I started teaching you." Minato-sensei was gleefully unrepentant to finally shove a hyperactive too-smart-for-his-own-good training-obsessed genin upon his own student, just like the Sandaime had done to him.

  
  


If Kakashi was any more petulant, he'd be calling sensei heartless as well. Luckily he already had a good rapport with Itachi-kun, and little Itachi-kun was just as eager to learn and train as Kakashi used to be at that age. Needless to say, their training was far more intensive than either Mikoto-sama or Minato-sensei had hoped it would be. And whenever they had downtime they happily bonded over having ridiculously cute cuddlebugs for younger brothers. Somewhere along the way it became a competition on who had the most awesome baby brother. It might have escalated at some point... Just a tiny bit. But Sasuke-chan and Naruto-chan loved it all.

  
  


Kakashi refused to be apologetic to Minato-sensei for the way he taught Itachi-kun. If anyone was to blame, it was Minato-sensei for making the horrible mistake of thinking Kakashi could easily multitask being an ANBU active captain and a jounin-sensei. How nobody had predicted that Itachi-kun would become ANBU’s youngest almost-member but definitely recruit that trained along with ANBU was beyond Kakashi.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When some Kumo nin was stupid enough to not only try to kidnap the young Hyuuga Heiress, but her esteemed birthday guest Namikaze Naruto-chan as well, Minato-sensei sensed it the moment Naruto-chan was moving towards Konoha's gates. What happened afterward eventually led to an updated bingo book for Kumogakure, which in comparison made Iwa's bingo book look like they thought Minato-sensei was a cute fluffy kitten rather than the “monster” who single handedly destroyed their entire army. Needless to say, politically Konoha came out on top.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kakashi had always treated Naruto-chan like Hatake Sakumo used to treat Kakashi, and very early on Kakashi found out that Naruto-chan lived for attention, and positive attention gave him a drive to excel like no other.

  
  


Kakashi played the same sort of chakra, kana & kanji games with his little brother like the White Fang used to play with his son when Kakashi was Naruto's age - and Naruto ate it all up.

  
  


Of course Minato-sensei had no right to complain because for every kanji Naruto-chan proudly showed him he had learned, Minato-sensei happily taught his son a seal. Despite carrying the Namikaze name, Naruto was an Uzumaki through and through.

  
  


Of course, being the devious otouto that Naruto obviously was, he didn't mind being blatantly used in the still ongoing comeuppance game Kakashi was playing with his own student Itachi, and said student's kid brother. After all, Naruto got top notch tutoring and jutsus out of it.

  
  


So when his four year old baby brother is clearly ready for the academy, and says as much to Minato-sensei within the earshot of several council members Minato-sensei and Mikoto-sama aren't pleased and give Kakashi a stern talking to.

  
  


But Kakashi's careful nurturing since the moment he could hold Naruto-chan’s attention for a minute or more meant that Kakashi had started the chakra exercises with his baby brother very young, and Naruto-chan's chakra control was near perfect.

  
  


The disapproval only egged both Kakashi and Naruto-chan on to show Naruto-chan isn't out of place at the academy. Under Kakashi's watchful eye his baby brother planned a heist into his father's office and managed to get away with an interesting kinjutsu scroll long enough to memorize a few of it's jutsu's. Kakashi was impressed with how little he had to tweak Naruto's original plan, but then again, Naruto was a natural prankster.

  
  


When everything was said and done Kakashi figured it was a good thing that he was the only one that showed sensei he cared anymore, because being sensei's steadfast source of affection could very well be what saved him from an otherwise inescapable death by strangulation, if sensei's glower was anything to go by. What made sensei’s glare even more dire was that his scent that always showed either grief, depression or self-hatred spiked with something else and an avalanche of frustration.

  
  


Self preservation instincts aside, Kakashi maintained that it was vastly unfair that egging a four year old on to sneak into his father’s office and successfully study a kinjutsu scroll and rewarding said four year old's succeeded 'mission’ with more jutsu lessons wasn't sanctioned ex post facto by said four year old's father.

  
  


Personally, Kakashi was very proud that his sibling had managed to combine a few of those those new jutsu’s to change their gender and be sensei's daughter as well. In Kakashi’s opinion that was the kind of versatility that kept shinobi alive. He even made it a point to learn the jutsu himself.

  
  


Any unfounded rumour about the honourable daughter - or son - of the Hokage being an Futanari or even fox bride of all things was just too hilarious especially because sensei was a bit of an overprotective father when he wasn't scaring the living daylights out of ninja everywhere with simply being himself.

  
  


Sensei’s glare said that Naru-chan's ‘treat’ - an impromptu sleepover at Kakashi's - for such an extraordinary feat of ninjutsu wasn't meant to be a treat at all for Kakashi, but Kakashi couldn't really see it. For some reason sensei still was oddly convinced that Kakashi's social life was a lot more… social.

  
  


But Kakashi's so-called social evening had previously been devoid of any people whatsoever and he was already planning all sorts of ways to have fun with his little sibling.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It had been a mere stray thought, one that - looking back ought to have deserved more attention - almost every night Naruto-chan spend with Kakashi would mean that Minato-sensei would be hurting himself; and afterwards would either retrieve or accept Naruto back while faintly smelling of blood. And while Kakashi kept a close enough eye on sensei's mood swings that went along with it to know it was what kept Minato-sensei functioning, was Kakashi doing the right thing to keep his silence?

  
  


There never had been a doubt in Kakashi's mind that sensei deeply loved and cared for Naru-chan, so he’d never bothered to look into it any deeper. A lot of shinobi had destructive behaviour, and sensei made a point of not impairing his own movability and to keep his darker side away from Naruto-chan. Which was a lot more than Kakashi could say of other jounin-parents.

  
  


But that didn't explain why sensei felt the need to hurt himself after seeing 'Naruko'-chan. Was it her resemblance to Kushina-nee-san? Definitely food for thought, Kakashi decided.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Naruko-chan managed to graduate within a year, and somehow Sarutobi Asuma-san managed to make enough of a tantrum to get her as a genin rather than have some other certified genius brought out of the woodworks, because Asuma-san made a convincing case about Naruko-chan needing to have someone who could relate to be the honourable child turned ninja of a widely feared Hokage. Whether that'd be the Sandaime or Yondaime.  
  
Which was just as well because the Nara made a point of boring their children to death while pretending they were having a seemingly normal development compared to their peers, rather than showcasing their frightening intelligence which almost always bred true. They wouldn’t own up to having prodigies as if their continued existence depended on it; no matter how blatantly ahead of the curve said unacknowledged prodigies were.

  
  


But Asuma-san seemed to do a good job. And - as vexing as it is to admit for Kakashi - Asuma-san did have the ambition to see Naruko-chan thrive. The man had no compunctions ordering Naruko-chan into spending equal time with two genders rather than spending all her time as a kunoichi like she'd be inclined to because he didn't want her to develop dysphoria to some gender, while simultaneously recruiting his girlfriend in teaching her everything about grievously exploiting being a cute little girl with big blue puppy eyes.

  
  


On another note, sensei's reputation got an incredible uplift - long overdue, in Kakashi's indignant opinion - when he made a blood regulation seal that allowed shinobi and kunoichi to control their blood flow by themselves. Wounds that would make you bleed out in mere minutes could be completely ignored by simply willing your blood to stay in its arteries. Not to mention both shinobi and kunoichi alike quickly started to realise how much fun this seal could be with bedroom escapades. Kakashi had to admit, the seal certainly had it merits both on a professional and a personal level.

  
  


Not to mention Tsunade-sama's enthusiasm being unbridled at the idea of being able to heal shinobi that didn't bleed; it was reason enough for her to come home. Of course she looked once at his ROOT-buddy’s Mokuton, and immediately badgered him into accepting his adoption into the Senju clan.

  
  


It was an uplift for the general morale, while Konoha could be content that their enemies shivered in fear.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Yet somewhere along the way Minato-sensei's depression seemed to take a turn for the worse. Not that Kakashi could notice anything visible - sensei's smiles had been forced for anyone but Naruto-chan after Kushina-nee-san died - the only thing that clued Kakashi in was that sensei started to smell of blood or wounds more and more often.

  
  


When the “Unholy Duo” - a permanent chuunin espionage team consisting out of a particularly surly Hyūga Kiyomine and Uchiha Takara (who had been Obito's initial inspiration in becoming notorious for having passive aggressive tendencies in sheer friendliness and upbeat behaviour) - approaches him, Kakashi is rather baffled because their respective rank and specialisations never gave them any reason to interact with one another.

  
  


As they explained why they approached him, Kakashi feels himself despair that it isn't for a friendly two-on-one spar. Being the nosy duo that they are, they actually peeked through Minato-sensei's near solid genjutsus and saw reason for concern.

  
  


Kakashi even commends them for their wisdom in approaching him rather than anyone else with their findings because he has no doubt they would be silenced with extreme prejudice. It wouldn't do for a hidden village to even have the merest whisper that their leader was anything but at the pinnacle of their physical and mental strength. It was rumours of such nature that had spiked the civil unrest and started the civil war and purges in Kiri, after all.

  
  


Apparently in addition to the evidence of the self harm that seemed to take place more often than Kakashi would like, Minato-sensei looks like he'd been crying himself to sleep on a regular basis. Open wounds Kakashi can smell. Still smelling tears after someone had a shower not so much. The Unholy Duo baffles Kakashi with the sheer amount of data they managed to deliver on his sensei's peculiar behaviour.

  
  


But not knowing how to help sensei he simply bows deep, thanks them for giving him a better insight on the depth of their Hokage's depression, and pulls rank on them and tells them that this is an S ranked secret for his ears only.

  
  


He even pencils them into his already awfully busy schedule to train together on regular basis because they do have potential to be even greater shinobi, and it is an easy way of getting updates without raising any suspicion about the three of them seeking each other out.

  
  


If Takara (who is very thankful that someone close to their Hokage will be keeping a better eye on said Hokage and happy that an elite jounin is willing to train a pair of chuunin who are shunned by both of their clans for their unlikely friendship) teaches Kakashi how to put his sharingan to even better use Kakashi would definitely doesn't not complain. In Kakashi's opinion it is a rather nice “up yours” to the late clan head Uchiha Fugaku who had initially forbidden teaching him just that when a rather traumatised Kakashi returned to Konoha bearing Obito's eye but not the rest of Obito. Takara's conspiring smirk when Kakashi says as much said it all Kakashi needed to know on the matter.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kiyomine and Takara reach the same conclusion as Kakashi reaches just around the time Asuma starts sending Naru-chan back to the Academy in the afternoons so she can participate with the Kunoichi lessons of her age mates’ graduation class. Minato-sensei's depression takes yet another turn for the worse. And for once they actually can guess the reason.

  
  


If Kakashi finds it incredibly uncomfortable to have his little sister hang off his arm and flutter her eyelashes at him while giggling coyly all while leaving the good posture behind that’s carved into every pre-genin in order to... Show both her behind and chest while hollowing out her back, Kakashi really feels for sensei. Because as far as Kakashi knows, sensei really never got over Kushina-nee-san, and Naruko is her spitting image.

  
  


Female familial bonds should not be tarnished like that, regardless of what the teachers of the Kunoichi classes claim. Despite knowing the answer perfectly well, Kakashi still makes a point to inquire whether she was really really send out to make her direct family deeply uncomfortable she launches into an ad Verbum speech about learning these seducing techniques on safe targets before unintentionally attracting the wrong kind of attention by older shinobi who could be put out and aggressive by them not putting out.

  
  


Kakashi should have known. It was one of the uglier truths of ninja life. This was part of a kunoichi's (and even a straggler shinobi's) rite of passage. Seduction was a ninja’s bread and butter after all. But how children learnt it at a young age in a safe environment wasn't often spoken about, because it meant looking closer at changing boundaries.

  
  


Naruko then pouts cutely about her father's poker face being so unmovable and that he acts unflappable regardless of what she does. Reasoning that if her father isn't willing to give her any useful feedback she'll have to focus her attention on both her brother and Asuma-sensei.

  
  


The double entendre: “at least I can get a rise out of you two” makes Kakashi want to crawl in a hole and die.

  
  


He says as much, and his little sister pats his arm in a condescending way and remarks with a leer that it'd be good practice for Kakashi's female form as well - especially if he only ever uses it on a mission. Privately, Kakashi thinks he is more than fine acting like a shy wallflower on such occasions.

  
  


“But,” Naru-chan assured him, he definitely isn't the only one who is suffering. This practical homework turns out to be the main reason many civilian parents refuse to let their daughters become kunoichi.

  
  


“Ino said that her dad went to work in T&I for 72 hours straight before Morino Ibiki personally marched him home” she cackles gleefully.

  
  


Silently, Kakashi can't help but wonder if Minato-sensei is truly that unflappable because he’d been comparing notes with the Unholy Duo. Sensei really was not doing well. That Naruko elects to act like Kushina-nee-san's reincarnation surely can't help matters.

  
  


Regardless, in trusted environments lascivious body language slowly becomes Naru-chan's second nature towards men in general, and both Kakashi and Asuma find that they must often remember Naruto that he isn't a girl at the moment, and wonder if maybe it'd be easier if they simply bought Naruto bigger feminine kimonos and be done with it. To let Naru-chan confuse everyone as much as the charge of the nuke-nin Zabuza is said to do.

  
  


Either way Kakashi feels for Minato-sensei, because when her age mates graduate and Asuma tells her she doesn't have to return to Kunoichi classes as well and stop the charade and act like a competent ninja unless it is to get close to a mark Naru-chan confesses to Kakashi that she hasn't entirely stopped.

  
  


It has become a matter of pride for her and she was vexed that her father still hadn't done so much as twitch, while a civilian classmate had been admitted that her father's response had been the final straw on the camel's back of the already strained marriage of the girl's parents. Even Inoichi who lived and breathed for the nastiest of manipulations had been visibly unnerved, while Naruko's father would successfully feign that he didn't notice.

  
  


Whether it was at home or in the office, it didn't matter. Minato-sensei wouldn't even blink but his entire ANBU guard was unnerved. Apparently it was the otherwise unflappable Dragon of all people who the first month into the class assignment had taken it upon himself to tell Hokage-sama's honourable daughter that she clearly had flourished in kunoichi classes, and her aggressiveness was out of place before launching into a lecture on appropriate behaviour.

  
  


But Naru-chan's biggest vice was how Naru-chan just couldn't let things go. So when the next step for her age mates who were finally chuunin-to-be was to have their first time as soon as possible with someone they felt safe with so it wouldn’t be under less than ideal circumstances on a mission, Naru-chan knows she is old enough to be eligible for those kind of chuunin-missons if she’d simply ticked that box off.

  
  


Naru-chan kept at it at home. And it vexed Kakashi, because for the longest time he did not quite know how to address it. It takes an epiphany, a new insight about the situation for Kakashi to put on his big boy pants and confront Naru-chan about it.

  
  


"Holy shit, Naru-chan. This is the first time Minato-sensei ever denied you something big isn't it?”

  
  


Not giving her a chance to interject, he went on.

  
  


“He's always loved you so much he has spoiled you rotten. And now he is denying you something big - a rite of passage all kunoichi that aren’t in a relationship will pass with their parents, and he even pretends not to notice what you are asking for?"

  
  


"Yes," Naruko hissed. Can you see why I can't let it go?!"

  
  


"Naruko," Kakashi sighed.

  
  


"For all that you see me reading stories that often tread into the murky waters of dubious consent and yet are still sold as the pinnacle of romance I cannot endorse coercion or not disabuse you for the notion that sexual coercion is not to be frowned upon. Sexual encounters, no matter how benign or carnal should be wanted by all participants, Naruko.”

  
  


Naruko wrinkled her nose in thought and hummed for him to go on.

  
  


“Even when it is your own father, if you don't get verbal permission the other party has not consented and you could very well be taking more than the other party is willing to give. Forcing the matter is only acceptable behaviour when you are confronted with enemy nin during war, and even then you could have shit-luck and your actions might end up have legal consequences you might not like. So until you manage to weave genjutsu so strong that even jounin have a hard time breaking out of it, and you can be sure your target will think it was their decision all along, the answer is simple: don't. If someone is missing all the cues, they either aren't looking, or they are being polite about it. So drop it, en stop trying to seduce your target.”

  
  


Kakashi hopes that’s that, and resolves to share a bottle of hard liquor with Minato-sensei, because he doesn't deserve Naru-chan being a brat like that.

  
  


After two and a half years of watching Minato-sensei quietly crumble further apart sensei remarks to Kakashi that he appreciates the liquor, and that he really is the wrong man to be Hokage. Whether or not Kakashi feels like trying his hand at the position. Sensei sounds brittle.

  
  


Kakashi outright refuses to even think about taking the hat. He cites that he isn't nearly as beloved as sensei was when he took over from Sandaime-sama. It's only in the privacy of his mind that he questions what sensei would live on for with an insidious seductress of a legally adult daughter, if not for duty.

  
  


It was telling how Kakashi's own father had waited until his chuunin exams. An argument about not letting a six year old genin live by themselves could be made. Doing that is to a chuunin would have been insulting. Naru-chan already visibly earned her promotion to jounin. Nobody would dispute the independency of a 14 year old jounin. She didn't need to be coddled.

  
  


“His eyes are less swollen these days,” Kiyomine reports during their spar while he successfully renders Kakashi's wrist useless with a perfectly executed gentle fist.

  
  


“He smells of fresh blood far more often though,” Kakashi remarks cynically while locking Kiyomine in a choke hold.

  
  


Takara curses while he kicks where Kakashi's kidneys were a fraction of a second ago.

  
  


“I thought his wounds weren't healing as they should. Any behavioural changes?”

  
  


As an answer he throws a breathless Kiyomine at Takara while using the chaos as an opportunity to incapacitate them both. Not his first go-to combat move in an actual fight, but definitely acceptable during a friendly spar.

  
  


“So if you actually didn't know any better you'd say he were doing better,” Takara assumes dryly while getting his breathing back under control.

  
  


“Let us go before Gai thinks we're trying to steal his boyfriend,” Kiyomine says from under Kakashi.

  
  


Kakashi lets them both up while rolling his eyes.

  
  


“You two know damn well I am single,” he grouches.

  
  


“So have you ever thought about a ménage a trois with us? Icha Icha: Tactics, first scene of volume three… You get to play Honda-san and Kiyomine and I will wear a henge and we'll properly play the Fujiwara twins. I bet we are just as bendable. I will promise you it will be unforgettable,” Takara said lecherously.

  
  


Kakashi shuddered visibly.

  
  


“If I need to get my rocks off I'll consider going steady with Gai before adding myself to your wank-bank. No matter what anyone says, using your sharingan in one night stands is not romantic!”

  
  


Kiyomine snorts and dragged a pouting Takara off the training field with a friendly wave.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Stupidly enough, despite the increased mutilation Minato-sensei seemed to do better. Only in hindsight Kakashi could admit he didn't want to admit sensei had clearly hit rock bottom a few years ago, and finally made himself comfortable at his new low.

  
  


Somehow Naru-chan finally seemed to cotton on to the fact that the way their father acted was erratic.

  
  


But no matter how competent a jounin and how accomplished a seal master Naru-chan was, Naru-chan was a novice compared with their father's might.

  
  


And so Naru-chan pleaded to the one person that always had trouble saying no to his little sibling. Kakashi folded quicker than he cared for.

  
  


And after a month of careful reconnaissance and the conclusion that probably even the Uzukage would have been hard pressed to breach the seals on sensei's bedroom, Kakashi henged himself into a spider in order to get in while Minato had the door open.

He knew what to expect. Minato-sensei had been mutilating for seventeen years by now. All he wanted to see was how the severity of it, so he could tell Naru-chan how bad it was, and maybe they could think up a plan to help sensei. This was merely a way to collect more data so they knew what to work with. So they'd be able to figure out what to do afterwards. It'd be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I must have had this ready to post for a good year and a half by now, but the last few alinea's when Kakashi actually finds out are tripping me up. I am so completely done with it that I decided to make it a two chapter post, where I hope to post the next chapter sometime in the next two years. I hope it is the start of a worthy sequel to Guilt.


End file.
